How To Lose A Debate

I was roundly defeated by Bob Murphy in our (initial?) debate. At the opening I had five supporters to Bob’s 130+. By the end, only one was still willing to stand with me.

To make matters worse I’ve been told he was a Hipster Austrian, and only supporting me ironically.

This marks three out of three online debates/bloggingheads in which the other side has declared victory. So, by now I am developing an expertise at losing.

Nonetheless, I see myself as having succeeded in advancing human understanding.

(I’ll let Liz Lemon take care of the eye roll on this one, so my wife doesn’t have to)

In any case here is my short course on how to lose a debate

Concede as much ground up front as possible. You don’t want your opponent wasting valuable time explaining why weak points in your argument are weak. If you know they are weak simply concede them and give your opponent ample opportunity to knock down your strong points as well.

Speak your opponent’s language. There is a lot of confusion that is generated from simple misunderstanding of nomenclature or framing. Adopt your opponent’s frame. Not only will this dispense with lots of rhetoric you could otherwise hide behind but it will give him credit for any consensus you reach.

If your opponent finds a good line of attack, seize upon it and expand it. A good line of attack often focuses attention on the key differences between you and your opponent. If your opponent does this first, don’t waste time finding your own line of attack. Instead simply accept his articulation of the differences and then elucidate how that line of inquiry gets at the them.

Admit that you may have to think more on a given point. If your opponent says something that makes sense but still doesn’t seem quite right to you, avoid looking for chinks in his argument. Instead, say that he raises a good point and you will have to think more on it.

Change your mind in the middle of an argument. If your opponent makes a particularly good point and is genuinely compelling, simply change your mind and adopt his point of view. This is good for an instant defeat.

If you follow these steps diligently and work hard at you can develop the kind of losing streak only a mom would be proud of. If you’re good enough even your mom will vote for the other guy.

Unfortunately you’ll be saddled with a deeper appreciation of your opponent’s point-of-view and if you are truly unlucky better insight into reality. If this keeps happening you’ll find it more and more difficult to lose, but don’t despair. It can be done!

In reply to Leigh, very few of the Austrians attending that debate (and I am one of them) started out their lives as Austrians. Many of us are people who started out accepting the Keynesian perspective, and have at some point changed our minds already. For those who believe that they were wrong in the past and have since found a better explanation, it is not closed-minded to not change their minds again. I do think that Karl did a great service to Keynesian economics in this debate, however, in that he did not further the typical stereotype of Keynesians held by many casual Austrians, and instead made his case in an intelligent, respectful way. It’s always easiest to caricature one’s opponent in order to make them look ridiculous. Karl helped to make that very difficult to do.

The challenge for Keynesians is to frame their ideas such that human choice and free market competition are not squelched. There is a real risk that the “visible hand” of government will pick winners, shield people from their bad choices with money from the public trust, etc.

I think Karl has done an admirable job of writing about ways to use government fiscal and monetary policy in responsible ways that respect free markets.

The problem with the Austrian perspective (and I say this being quite sympathetic to Austrian/free market/libertarian ideas) is that it’s a negative position — if people don’t choose something, don’t do it. If you can’t convince people it is in their best interest, don’t do it. This position is principled, but often leads to inaction when action would help.

Keynesians needn’t frame their ideas as ‘compatible’ with the ‘free market’ because no such thing exists. We need to take a reasonable approach and sweep away the skewed view with which ‘free market’ proponents view the world.

The secret to winning a debate is not engaging in a debate in a sectarian forum in the first place. I mean are you going to debate the Pope in the Vatican in front of the college of cardinals and expect to win?

Hi Karl, I attended the debate after hearing about it through the Mises Institute and I thought I’d let you know that I enjoyed it. I actually wish you had more time to go through some of your talking points and graphs as it was interesting. I am an Austrian but I do enjoy a good discussion and I think it was a good discussion, though as already mentioned in your comments; it is difficult to “win” a debate when the audience is 96% with the opposing “team”.

Either way, if you were to write a follow up article that used the graphs/slides you had prepared for the debate and further discussed them as you would have given time in the debate; I will read it and probably others from the debate would as well. Though as I’m not a subscriber here, you could probably post a link to it on the debate forums so us Austrians would find it.

Couldn’t agree more. No offence to Bob, but the “home” crowd kind of knew his repertoire in advance, so there wasn’t much of a surprise there. I found Karl’s presentation of New Keynesianism freed from the bounds of mandatory text books surprinsingly refreshing and also would have preferred if he had more time to elaborate on his points.

But still, I’m not reconverting back to mainstream economics, not by a long shot :).

I paid to watch the debate. I would not consider myself an “Austrian” or a “Keynesian” although I at this point I feel the Austrian economists have a better understanding of how economies actually function. Overall I thought the debate was good. I would have liked to hear more from Dr. Smith and I hope there will be more debates to come. Dr. Smith demonstrated a great deal of intellectual integrity during the debate which was refreshing.

Declaring a “winner” is pointless, especially considering most of those watching had already rejected the Keynesian viewpoint and were sympathetic to the Austrians.

Karl, I think a lot of your “ways to lose a debate” are things that everyone should do if debate is really about what it should be, which isn’t about winning but about learning.

This fairness will also help when you make a point that the other side doesn’t deal with completely.

For example, in the debate you had made the point about how you couldn’t see an actual loss in the capital stock in any particular metric, even when disaggregated and that was not something that I think Bob was able to really counter.

I think there were a couple of other cases where you really made me think and I imagine this was true of others as well.

I’m very much a structure-of-production / Austrian guy, but I definitely enjoyed listening to your analysis. It was one of the most clear descriptions of the monetarist+Keynesian view that I’ve heard in a long time. I think you’re on the mark when you say that the sustainability of the boom is very important question.

Smith should be congratulated for being open enough to debate Murphy in his own turf with many supporters. While I’m an Austrian myself, I don’t believe Murphy would have won the debate in a room full of Keynesians. The point is that debates can’t change many minds, they are simply intriguing provocations to go on and learn more.

Smith looks very intelligent and I’m sure that if he started reading Man, Economy, and State, his thinking would come to make more sense.

I definitely agree that you achieved resounding success in furthering human understanding, Dr. Smith. You can count me as one Rothbardian who will make a point to follow your perspectives in the future.

Dr. Smith – Although I had, and continue to have, a strong aversion to the structure, assumptions, moral implications, and conclusions of Keynesian economics, I will say that I thought your comments were well-prepared and thoughtful. I think the debate format itself (limited time to state your case and cast doubt on opposing view) may have worked against you, as you seemed ready to explore both sides of each issue. As you said, that’s not exactly a winning debate strategy. Good for a long night drinking coffee and talking, but not for a timed debate.

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